11 10 2007- House panel OKs Armenian genocide resolution

By Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell 10 minutes ago
A U.S. House committee approved on Wednesday a resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians genocide, brushing aside White House warnings that it would do "great harm" to ties with NATO ally Turkey, a key supporter in the Iraq war.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution 27-21. It now goes to the House floor, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November. There is a companion bill in the Senate, but both measures are strictly symbolic, and do not require the president's signature.

Turkey calls the resolution an insult and rejects the Armenian position, backed by many Western historians, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Turkey has warned of damage to bilateral ties if Congress passes the measure, and President George W. Bush made the same point before the vote Wednesday.

"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said at the White House.

The bulk of supplies for troops in Iraq pass through Turkey's Incirlik airbase, and Turkey provides thousands of truck drivers and other workers for U.S. operations in Iraq. Supplies also flow from that base to troops in Afghanistan.

The committee vote followed hours of sometimes emotional debate over whether, as the committee's chairman Rep. Tom Lantos said, lawmakers should "condemn this historic nightmare through the use of the word genocide," or put military cooperation with an upset Turkey at risk. Lantos, a California Democrat, voted for the resolution.

"We are disappointed at this point, but this process is going on," Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Nabi Sensoy, told reporters after the vote. "We will have to wait and see what the results are." He did not want to "prejudge" the reaction of the Turkish government or parliament.

The White House was also "very disappointed" in the vote, spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, adding that the president is still asking that the House as a whole reject the resolution if and when it comes to the floor.

But a group of Armenian Americans -- the Armenian Assembly of America -- commended the move. "It is long past time for the U.S. government to acknowledge and affirm this horrible chapter of history - the first genocide of the 20th century and a part of history that we must never forget," director Bryan Ardouny said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Matt Spetalnick)

S. M.